Goofin' around w/ gas checks

[Jim]

Sittin' at the bench just lookin' at stuff that needs to be put away. There's a few .430-230-2R Lee boolits layin' there and some .45 caliber Hornady gas checks. Hmmm.....

I layed a .45 caliber gas check on the bench, set one of the boolits on it and kinda' 'seated' it with a rubber faced dead blow hammer. I put a .430 sizer die in my big ol' Pacific press, put the counter sunk piston in the ram and sent the boolit through it.

I gas checked a plain base boolit.

[RP]

Jim that looks like you may be onto something. Thinking outside the box I think they call that.

[Jim]

Somebody left my box unlocked and I got out!

[Sonnypie]

Now that right there is some "Tight Fittin Jeans"

Load em up and see how well they shoot.

[Whiterabbit]

I hope you have better luck than me. My GC's come out half mangled when I try that one. My best shot was using a punch to open up the GC to fit the BB on the PB bullets I have. They look much the same when they come out well, with the rounded bottom like that.

No problems shooting them, though one time I put two holes in the target, a bullet hole and what looked like a frisbee hole form a flung out gas check. I never made enough to do any accuracy testing. I think I need to make a better punch set for that.

[Jim]

Oh, I had no intention of getting in to any deep research. Like the title says, I was just goofin' around with it.

[Duckhunter]

I traded a box of 30 cal gas checks for a few hundred 45 GC so I can do that with a 44 PB boolit. I had already lubed the boolits through my LAM sized to .430. I sat the bolits into the 45 GC and used a wooden dowel to "push seat" the boolits into the checks. The fit was fairly snug and there was some resistance when the LAM handle was operated but the boolits came out just like those pictured above. After I got "into" the process, it went pretty fast. I haven't shot any of these yet but I am excited about all those "pretty boolits". I'm loading these into a T/C Encore 444 Marlin. I think a 45 GC on a 44 boolit is just the fix for the plain base boolit.

[TXGunNut]

Proof's in the shootin' I'd guess. I'm thinking that Pacific press has plenty of leverage because that looks more like swaging than installing a gas check.
Why wouldn't it work?

[ricksplace]

Jim -you're a pretty fart smeller. I decided to follow your suggestion. I put a .35 gas check in the .358 die in my Lyman 450 and put a Lee 357 158 RF (bevel base) on top of it. Pulled the handle, and voila! A gas checked bullet! The gas check crimps on to the bevel base of the boolit perfectly square. Who'da thunk it? I'm sure it would work in a 357 die just as well, or on a Lee push through die too.

A classic example of "Why didn't I think of that?"

[Wally]

I hope you have better luck than me. My GC's come out half mangled when I try that one. My best shot was using a punch to open up the GC to fit the BB on the PB bullets I have. They look much the same when they come out well, with the rounded bottom like that.

No problems shooting them, though one time I put two holes in the target, a bullet hole and what looked like a frisbee hole form a flung out gas check. I never made enough to do any accuracy testing. I think I need to make a better punch set for that.

I have a no. of Freechex GC making tools (Ver 2)...you can form the GC to be like \__/ instead of like l__l which makes it much easier to attach to a Bevel based bullet.